Yalmay Yunupingu speaks during a community leaders meeting about alcohol related issues in Yirrkala on Monday.
Photograph: Helen Davidson for the Guardian

“Alcohol, it does have a ripple effect, it’s one person who goes out drinking but there might be 10 or 12 people living in that same house,” says Melanie Rarrtjiwuy Herdman in the north-east Arnhem Land community of Yirrkala.

“It also has a social impact on that family – food security and health issues and domestic violence are things we often hear about.”

Herdman, a health officer with the Indigenous organisation Miwatj Health, and other community leaders met the Northern Territory justice minister, Natasha Fyles, on Monday to share their concerns over alcohol, including the “abundance” of outlets for nearby Nhulunbuy’s shrinking population.

They discussed the return of the banned drinkers register – a system of restricting problem drinkers from buying alcohol, abolished by the Country Liberal party – which is being rolled out in Nhulunbuy and five other remote communities for testing ahead of the rest of the NT.

Nhulunbuy and nearby communities, including Yirrkala, already have a drinking permit system and it is widely seen as an example of community-controlled success.

Designed in 2002 by the Mawal Harmony women’s group in collaboration with the 13 local clans, it requires anyone who wants to buy alcohol across the five communities to have a permit, with varying restrictions determined by each community’s committee.

Community leaders are now hoping the BDR will complement their permits, and not reduce their control over a locally-led system.

The BDR restricts registered problem drinkers from buying takeaway alcohol or drinking at a pub – although only the former will be monitored through ID scanning at the point of sale. Individuals must have clearance from both the BDR and the community permit system if they want to buy alcohol.

Herdman says the implementation and management of the BDR must include support for communities, and their leaders must be heard.

Fyles says the two systems will work together.

“It’s easy to get a drink in the territory,” she says in Nhulunbuy. “We want to have a safe entertainment precinct but we also need to acknowledge the huge harm alcohol does in our communities.”

We have to stop and we have to do something

Natasha Fyles

There are 530 liquor licences in the NT, equating to one outlet for every 353 adults, and translating into unmatched problems with alcohol and related health, violence and crime issues, which on top of the social cost equates to about $642m a year.

Policies to address it change frequently and this is a second appearance for the BDR, after a short-lived nine months the last time Labor was in government. It will be rolled out across the territory from September.

How it works

The BDR will launch with a registry of more than 1,000 people, including those rolled over from the mandatory alcohol treatment orders – which will be scrapped at the same time – and the government says it expects the list to grow by more than 500 people a month before tapering off.

An individual will be put on the register if they are subject to three protective custody incidents and/or alcohol-related infringement notices in a two-year period. Offences include alcohol-related domestic violence orders and child protection orders.

Partly in response to criticism that the first BDR appeared to target Indigenous people, mark II has a wider net and anyone caught drink-driving – just once at a mid or high range, or twice in three years at low range – will also go on the register.

The system is intended to drive people towards counselling and support services during the ban periods, which will go for three, six or 12 months.

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People can also volunteer to be restricted from alcohol sales.

Guardian Australia hears this is already happening under the north-east Arnhem permit system, with women in particular volunteering to give up their right to buy alcohol to avoid pressure from family to buy it for them.

BDR restricts purchases at the point of sale and secondary suppliers are expected to be a problem, although that will be an offence.

It’s already an offence for pubs to serve intoxicated patrons, but according to a number of people at the community leader meeting, that’s happening regularly.

People come “crawling out of the pub” and get home “blind drunk”, disturbing communities and households, affecting kids who need to go to school and other family members, normalising alcohol abuse and often getting in trouble with the law, Herdman says.

Fyles acknowledges there is clearly an issue with the responsible service of alcohol at some venues, and says there are already measures in place to prosecute, but it needs to be easier for community members to report concerns to licensing authorities.

An alcohol licensing review is currently under way and Fyles says “everything is on the table”, including opening hours and the number of licences available.

“When we look at the huge harm caused by alcohol, we have to stop and we have to do something.”